I do think in some cases there is adhering to the spirit to the meaning rather than a direct translation. Pokemon for example would not have caught on (no pun intended) as much as it has in America if all the original names were kept or directly translated rather than using wordplay that English speakers would understand.
But these people don't even care about the spirit. They just want to low key insert their fanfiction into official material. AI can do a lot of legwork now, but it's still not as good as if a real human did it, but that seems to be a sacrifice that has to be made if the only humans that are doing it are shitty people disrespecting the source material.
Typically a localizer's job would be to know the target market of the product and how to remove those strange elements from the source culture that nobody would understand with something equivalent but close enough in their culture. Swap a joke for a similar joke, use a different joke only if nothing else fits. Change a song to match the tone of the original, if not the exact lyrics, etc. The goal is to maximize sales in the target market. That's your only job. Localizers today are bragging about adding messaging to virtue signal, and intentionally replacing things that were perfectly understandable with things that only make sense to a tiny subset of Americans - narrowing the market to their San Francisco queer culture and leaving everyone else confused or disappointed. They have no sense of duty or honor.
One of the best examples I always feel is HFIL from DBZ.
Japan treats Christianity pretty lightly, almost like a cool exotic joke. Which keeps with them calling the afterlife Hell in that universe and it being full of bureaucracy and joke characters.
But calling it Hell in the West is a lot stronger sounding with more baggage. Turning it into the Home For Infinite Losers not only keeps that light hearted jokey nature, it also creates an infinitely more memorable name.
Is it censorship? Sure. But it keeps the spirit perfectly intact while also actually increasing the joke over the blander Japanese name.
The whole localization frustrates me.
I do think in some cases there is adhering to the spirit to the meaning rather than a direct translation. Pokemon for example would not have caught on (no pun intended) as much as it has in America if all the original names were kept or directly translated rather than using wordplay that English speakers would understand.
But these people don't even care about the spirit. They just want to low key insert their fanfiction into official material. AI can do a lot of legwork now, but it's still not as good as if a real human did it, but that seems to be a sacrifice that has to be made if the only humans that are doing it are shitty people disrespecting the source material.
Typically a localizer's job would be to know the target market of the product and how to remove those strange elements from the source culture that nobody would understand with something equivalent but close enough in their culture. Swap a joke for a similar joke, use a different joke only if nothing else fits. Change a song to match the tone of the original, if not the exact lyrics, etc. The goal is to maximize sales in the target market. That's your only job. Localizers today are bragging about adding messaging to virtue signal, and intentionally replacing things that were perfectly understandable with things that only make sense to a tiny subset of Americans - narrowing the market to their San Francisco queer culture and leaving everyone else confused or disappointed. They have no sense of duty or honor.
One of the best examples I always feel is HFIL from DBZ.
Japan treats Christianity pretty lightly, almost like a cool exotic joke. Which keeps with them calling the afterlife Hell in that universe and it being full of bureaucracy and joke characters.
But calling it Hell in the West is a lot stronger sounding with more baggage. Turning it into the Home For Infinite Losers not only keeps that light hearted jokey nature, it also creates an infinitely more memorable name.
Is it censorship? Sure. But it keeps the spirit perfectly intact while also actually increasing the joke over the blander Japanese name.